Season of Sickness

This winter has truly been the Season of Sickness here at the Glenn house. I would always hear about other families who had what seemed like an entire month of illness but until I had a child it had never been me. It’s been seriously ridiculous. So far, since Christmas we’ve had:

Nicholas: 3 ear infections, 17 days worth of the stomach flu, 14 days worth of a NASTY cold, 2 ER visits, 2 days of hospital stays and 1 surgery

Lauren: 4 days worth of strep throat, 3 days worth of stomach flu, 5 days worth of colds

Donnie: 3 days worth of stomach flu, 7 days worth of cold/flu

Apparently our house is one big cesspool of germs. But on the bright side I feel like I can now say I’ve handled it—that we came out unscathed and that I never want to be puked on again (at least not until next winter please!) If only we had had the foresight to buy stock in Lysol….

The really unfortunate part of all this sickness is how rough it’s been on Nicholas. For an RSS kiddo, illness is a BIG deal. While Nicholas didn’t lose a ton of weight (only a few ounces) it’s a BIG deal for him. At his 9 month well visit Nicholas was 12lbs even, now at almost 12 months Nicholas is still only 12.1lbs….not so good for 3 months of growth. While yes he had the stomach flu, the times he wasn’t pukey he was being fed HIGH calorie food (I’m talking toast with butter on BOTH sides per our nutritionist, entire bowls of ice cream in the evening…any and everything we could do to get as many calories in him as possible!) Unfortunately they think his lack of weight gain is also attributed to his growth curve slowing down and perhaps plateauing which is common for RSS kids. He had been doing really well, chugging along on his own little curve, that paralleled the “normal” growth curve, just well below it. Now that curve is taking a nose dive and its not so good.

For us that means in the next couple months that if we cant get his weight back up, growth increased than we will be back to the pediatric gastroenterologist to discuss G-tubes and those options. At this point, the thought of a G-tube (feeding tube that goes directly into the stomach) is far less anxiety-provoking than it used to be. If it means there is less stress on our family to get Nick to grow than I am all for it!

We also recently had a very important appointment with Nicholas’ new endocrinologist who is going to be his primary doc (along with our awesome pediatrician). At this appointment we decided it was time to start Nicholas on growth hormone therapy! This is big exciting news for us because hopefully once he starts GHT he will obviously grow better, gain weight easier (hopefully), get sick less, have more stable blood sugar along with other positives. The biggest hurdle we have with starting this will be getting insurance approval. Often times insurance companies don’t approve this therapy since it will be something we will need for quite a few years. GHT involves giving Nicholas nightly injections of the synthetic growth hormone. For most RSS kids the GHT lasts well into adolescence which from an insurance perspective that is them paying for this expensive therapy from age 1 to possible age 15+. We could really use prayer about this, that starting this therapy will be an easy transition and that Nicholas will handle the injections with ease. Also we could use prayer that we will get insurance approval very quickly! Some friends of ours that have a daughter with RSS were very blessed and got insurance coverage within 2 weeks! That is basically unheard of, many families have to fight with the insurance company for 6+ months—hopefully that wont be us!

So while this has been a season of sickness for us its been a huge season of growth also. For me its been growing in my confidence in my parenting, growing in my abilities to turn these things over to the Lord. Without realizing it I’ve been holding on so hard to Nicholas’ medical situation. I felt like I was giving these things over to the Lord but I was still clenching them with white knuckles out of fear that if I loosened my grip things would fall apart. In doing this I was missing out on the relief that comes with trusting in the Lord wholeheartedly, I’ve also missed out on experiencing the overwhelming grace that the Lord could be pouring out on me if I only let Him. He has given me grace upon grace to deal with the circumstances that He has perfectly portioned out for me.

“For in his fullness, we have all received, and grace upon grace” John 1:16

I am so thankful for the experiences and struggles I’ve had in the last year (Nicholas’ medical stuff, my difficult pregnancy, my struggles with not being able to nurse my baby, then the struggles with getting my baby to eat in general, the struggles of having surgeries and illness and many other things). I have really learned what it means to go with the flow, to give it all to the Lord and just to put my faith in Him that the season I was experiencing is just that, a season of my life. So in this season of sickness I give thanks to God that he has portioned and appointed all the seasons of my life and that while things may be hard I know there is another season just around the corner.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. –Ecclesiastes 3:1-8